My mom’s eyes reignite with youthful joy each time she pulls out the scrapbook which tells the stories of her glory days as the running back for the Sheehan High powder puff football team. “My name was in the paper as a part of Sheehan’s triple threat. On game day I had an 88-yard run,” she likes to remind me, a smile stretched across her face.
Naturally, I grew up seeing powder puff as a great opportunity for girls to get dirty and prove their physical strength. Over the past couple of weeks, each class of Choate girls has been preparing for the opportunity to crush an opponent on the powder puff field. However, the preparations have triggered an unanticipated controversy on campus: is powder puff empowering for young women, or does it succumb to negative female stereotypes?
Here’s how powder puff began: In 1945, Eastern State Teachers College, in Madison, South Dakota, lost many of its male students to World War II. As homecoming came around that year, the school decided to cancel homecoming sporting events because there were not enough men to fill the sports teams. The female students stepped up, deciding to play a game of football themselves.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the idea wasn’t well received. Although the girls were allowed to play, the game proved to be a spectacle — the young women cluelessly ran around the field as their classmates laughed on the sidelines. Instead of a traditional halftime performance, the girls ran onto the field and applied a fresh face of makeup in front of the crowd. This is the origin of the name “powder puff,” which of course stereotypes women as delicate things, and emphasizes the pressure many of them feel to appeal to men.
However, the application of makeup during halftime, though criticized, also celebrated the fact that a woman can wear makeup or a pretty dress and still be a strong competitor on the field. As my mom taught me, powder puff is a display of pure female athleticism.
Most of the criticisms of powder puff that I’ve heard around campus argue that girls will be made fun of for not knowing what they’re doing on the field or for “throwing like a girl.” But who says that Choate girls won’t know what they’re doing? Who says that “throwing like a girl” isn’t something to celebrate? Choate’s women’s athletic teams have historically been as much a contributor to the School’s athletic successes as the men’s’ teams, and they can certainly hold their own on the gridiron.
This year, as Choate’s young women throw that pass, make that grab, and go for that 88-yard run, the players and spectators alike would do well to remember the women who came before them —the ones who fought past makeup at halftime to deliver the beautiful display of athleticism in which our young women still participate in today.
